The Mending of Anastasia Chen
by DreamCatcher37
Summary: The Mercado's a liminal space, where time has no meaning and dragonflies crawl the cracks in the foundation. A secret long buried won't stay buried. And someone long dead won't stay dead. The Ghostbusters don't get paid enough to deal with this, honestly.
1. The Truth Unearthed

"Good evening, and welcome to The Truth Unearthed...your only source of sanity in a 'paranormal' world. As always, I'm your host, Martin Heiss—and here with me is the returning Alec Melnitz. Tonight we'll examine the latest of New York's many mysteries. This one comes to us from the World Wide Web...stay tuned, and stay alert. This is The Truth Unearthed."

Martin Heiss's show (entering its sixth season) is filmed in a dusky, Ripley-esque office. Countless spooky curios frame the man himself. (His co-star sits off to the side.) Martin talks to the camera in a low voice. Never without his characteristic hat and cane, his countenance is like a familiar old relative, back from his worldly travels. That's how Martin captivates his audience.

(Some of his fans call him Uncle Heiss. A small subculture call him Daddy, but we don't talk about those people.)

This episode is one of Martin Heiss's last—it's filmed just weeks before his untimely demise. The theme song plays. The office fades back in. Martin Heiss introduces his show.

"Three months ago, a video was leaked from the closed-circuit cameras of the Mercado hotel." A picture of the facade appears. "The Internet's full of these 'found footage' viral sensations...and now it looks like the Mercado's the latest victim. Established in the twenties, it's one of the fanciest joints on 26th. It's said to have many unexplained deaths attached to it...right, Alec?"

"That's right, and even more unsubstantiated claims. The amount of urban legends probably DOUBLE the amount of unsolved cases—"

"Yes. Like any hotel. This video's spread like wildfire in a very short time. The Youtube original's got over a million hits. A modern urban legend, really—and it's easy to see why. Let's take a look."

The video fades in. It's grainy, low-quality, and without any sound. Just an empty elevator...then a blur of dark hair enters, slams into the opposite wall, and cowers in a forward corner. Her movements are jerky. Alien. She comes out of nowhere. She waits—frozen—for a second, then frantically starts pressing buttons, one hand wound in her hair.

"Nothing captured on any auxiliary cameras alludes to what this girl's running from...or how she got into the hotel." While the elevator starts its journey up, the show turns back to Martin Heiss. "While she's been identified by her sister, the guest manifesto never included her name. None of the staff remember seeing her. And you'd think someone would remember her, with what she does next."

The mystery woman's pacing. Practically shaking. Then she looks up at some sound. Hiding in that forward corner, it's like she's expecting a blow. The elevator doors slowly open (but the angle of the camera doesn't show the hallway floor). So, so hesitantly, she examines the outside. Twitching, motioning, and mumbling to things that aren't there, the girl waits for the doors to close again. They don't.

The lights flicker, just barely caught by the camera. The woman looks up; mystified. It's easy to see her through the grainy camera and think she's unhinged. It's easy to forget she's a person.

She darts in and out. Another camera angle catches her looking around an empty hall. There's nothing there to be afraid of. But she moves like she's dodging invisible things. The word on everyone's mind, seeing this display, is "ghosts".

The nameless Asian woman wanders in and out. It seems none of the buttons work. Finally, she ventures into the hallway, leaning on a wall. And she's gone.

A few more shots trace her running—stumbling—stealing through abandoned hallways. The time stamp reads 3:14 AM—the witching hour. The video's delegated to a corner of the screen as Martin and his co-star discuss what's happening.

"Some obvious electrical interference there." Alec Melnitz starts.

"It's hard to tell what's really happening—but the thing that's got everybody buzzing is the end here."

With Martin Heiss's voice-over, the video continues, full-frame.

"There..."

The mystery girl's taking off down a series of halls.

"There..."

It's like she hears someone behind her; blindly, she rounds a corner.

"...Gone."

A few more camera angles are shown. Other second-floor hallways. The grand staircase. The front doors. They're all silent, they're all still.

The video fades away.

"That's the last time Anastasia Chen was seen alive." Martin says gravely. "In a police report released by the NYPD, she was positively identified—and no, she had no reason to be there. According to her family, she'd been missing for quite some time."

"The police failed to solve the mystery?" Alec asks, a scripted question.

"Yes—after a short investigation, no sign of Anastasia Chen was found. But they DID turn up an interesting fact about the Mercado—"

"What's that, Martin?"

"—Their security system hadn't been updated since the '70s. There are enough blind spots on those cameras someone could get around totally undetected."

(Martin Heiss forgets to mention most of those 'blind spots' were behind doors that could only be opened with a staff card.)

"And the elevator, what's—what happened with that?" Alec asks.

"Well, digging a little deeper into hotel records, it turns out the Mercado had a host of electrical problems all that week. Starting that night, in fact. Remember, this is a very old hotel." Martin addresses the camera again. "And now, I know what you're all thinking...what about the girl?"

Nán, actually nearing her thirties, appears in the corner again—pacing in the elevator, caught the limbo that would be her legacy.

"Missing since her college days, suddenly she turns up at a five-star hotel, of all places—and disappears into the ether just as quick. Where did she come from? What was she doing there? What happened to her? Those have been the questions on everyone's mind…but not everything is as it appears."

For a moment, Nán is full-frame again, frozen. Dark hair. Dark circles around her eyes. A pretty mystery, a sympathetic picture, a China doll for Martin Heiss to play with.

"Sometimes the truth is buried only inches under the surface! It took my team of researchers and I no time at all to uncover the truth. Anastasia Chen's no stranger to trespassing in hotels—this girl's a paranoid and dangerous schizophrenic!"

The still frame in the corner changes. Martin Heiss could've chosen any of the pictures on Nán's social media. One of her studying, or smiling with friends, or at Disneyworld with her family...the picture that represents her on the Truth Unearthed was from the time she was processed by the NYPD for trespassing. She could be the monster Martin Heiss was describing. (And he's describing a fictitious kind of schizophrenia.)

"It's no wonder she's jumping at shadows here, is it? NYU records state she lost her scholarship for "withdrawal from academics". And it took some prying, but the family admitted at long last, she's been on the streets—not locked up, like some would suggest."

"So the behavior on the video—"

"Was nothing more than one woman's insanity."

A society saturated with Hollywood's horror stories would believe that. No investigation is held. No public vigil. After Martin Heiss 'debunked' it, the video fades into obscurity.

"I'll tell you one thing—"

"What's that, Martin?"

"The most dangerous thing in that hotel is that schizo."


	2. Unlucky

It's coming up on winter in New York. And in a regal hotel on Times Square, the furnace just kicked on.

Tried to kick on, actually. It didn't go so well.

One of the maintenance men (they had to get multiple saps to do what the last guy did) drew the short straw, and gets to go down into the basement. Not alone, of course, no one goes into the basement unless the situation's dire—and then, only in pairs.

There's no ghosts in the Mercado.

But still. They're in pairs for…general safety reasons. Just REASONS, okay? Why so many questions?

Two minutes after the furnace was turned on, the vents started leaking black smoke. The thing was supposed to be inspected just before it was run…and it was (though probably not _well_ ). Old permanent resident Mrs. Ponner calls down to the front desk. She insists she can hear distant screaming from inside the vents.

Again, not ghosts. There are no ghosts in the Mercado.

Rooms grow colder as management scrambles to round up their saps. So unlucky Cameron and security management Luis are sent down to fix the problem. Luis carries the high-powered flashlight. Cameron is stuck carrying the toolbox. They talk as they descend the stairs.

Neither of them believes in ghosts.

There are no ghosts in the Mercado.

"Speak for yourself, man, I was supposed to go home an hour ago." Cameron says.

"That's management…I could be watching TV church in my office." Luis sweeps the flashlight back and forth scanning for spiderwebs. They exit the stairs and he unlocks the double doors.

"TV church don't count as church, we went over this…Did I ever tell you, you remind me of the guard from 'Devil'?"

"That M. Night-Whatever crap?" Luis pauses for a second, then points the flashlight beam at the doors behind the stairs. The room where it happened. "You know what they say. It takes a suicide to let 'em in…"

"You're full of shit, man."

Luis grins. "You caught me. Just fix the furnace, Cam, some of us got more work to do today."

The dark concrete hallways would make anyone uneasy. Never mind the fact that the place sat on the intersection of two major ley lines. Every once in awhile, there'll be scratching sounds in the dark. A hum too low for anyone to consciously hear pervades the air. All the staff heard about the freaky happenings at the Mercado (voices from empty rooms, phantom phone calls, wallpaper that crawls in the corner of your vision)-most have experienced things for themselves. It's old news. But the basement is something else entirely. It's a place that inspires subtle unease.

Luis's flashlight wanders over the faint cracks in the wall. The old fluorescents up above only make them seem deeper. They're evidence that the building was once torn apart. Management had the foundation checked out by an inspector, of course, but sometimes Luis wonders if the building won't fall down on them.

"Remind me why we can't have a _modern furnace_?" Cameron grumbles.

"Then we'd have nothing to fix."

The answer is really 'cheapness', but for the sake of their mental health, they just sigh and carry on. Cameron tugs at the hem of his scarlet monkey suit (no one likes the things.)

"What was that?"

"Luis, you're full of shit."

"No—back that way."

They're almost to the furnace, and as some kind of joke, Luis has stopped and swung the light behind them.

"Coulda sworn I saw bugs."

"Not them again…" Cameron knows they'll be his next job.

"…Long ones. Green ones." Luis sighs. "I'll go check 'em out, you do your job."

The security guard jogs off, and Cameron is alone. He doesn't give himself time to look around the creepy space—he just pushes through the door to the furnace room.

Situated at the back of the hotel, it's always warmer than the rest of the basement, and has the faint smell of burning gas. Cameron thinks he smells something under that. Burning hair? (It doesn't have to do with his job, so he pays it no mind.) The furnace itself is a monstrous thing. It's been in the building since…probably the 30's. It's almost as old as the bitchy receptionist, and somehow, (unlike the receptionist), it still does its job.

Cameron checks the dials and indicators on one wall. Nothing amiss there while the furnace is off. He takes a wrench and checks the natural gas input. Nothing off there, either. The next thing to do is open 'er up and look inside.

The metal's surprisingly…warm. It was supposed to have been off since yesterday. The slits in the sooty door are dark, though, no sign it's been on…Cameron brushes that off. It's not important to his job. He just needs to get the job done so he can get out of there, that's all he's focusing on. Cameron grabs the handle and—

"You qualified to fix that?"

"CHRIST on a BIKE—"

—It was just Luis, shining his damn flashlight from the door.

Trying not to sound like he just had a near-death experience, Cameron snaps, "Yeah. I can fix it, I have a degree in mechanics! You qualified to use that flashlight?"

"Fair enough." Luis turns it off and inspects the wall of furnace-specific tools and instruments. He lets out a low whistle. It'd take a genius to keep that old thing going. Too bad the last guy…you know.

"Find any bugs?" Cameron asks.

"Nah. Thought I did, but…nah."

With a deep breath, Cameron takes hold of the door again, and pulls it up with scraping sound that makes him feel like his teeth are gonna fall out. Like nails on a chalkboard. Damn.

The inside's dark—Cameron pulls out his own flashlight. (It's smaller than Luis's, but it's not the _size_ of the flashlight, it's how you _use_ it.) The inside is clean. One of the middle management guys claimed a possum got in there somehow. "No, seriously, it happened last February-we had smoke just like that." Paul insisted. But the furnace is empty. Behind the two-by-two door is a chamber the size of a crawlspace, with a grid of gas valves making up the floor. Beneath the valves, and in the margins around the edges, an oily kind of soot has gathered. Cameron wonders, when was the last time this thing got cleaned? 'Not since last winter', would probably be the answer.

"Smells like grandma's cookouts." Luis says. He's right. It's really not supposed to smell like that. Something else grabs Cameron's attention, though—the pilot light at the back of the furnace. It's waving. Like there's a draft coming up from below.

Cameron doesn't think he just leans in to get a closer look. It's not like he sticks his head in the thing…

…But he's close enough to get singed when the thing bursts into flames.

WHOOSH!

Cameron isn't sure if it's the rush of hot air or his own reflexes that send him flying back. The door SLAMS shut with another _bang_!

"Christ!" Luis barks.

Before Cameron can think, Luis has him, and he's patting down his front to make sure nothing caught fire. The roaring from the furnace is immense.

"You hurt?!"

"No—they—they said they weren't gonna turn it—" Cameron's too shocked to talk right. In seconds, both men fall silent. They don't have time to be mad at whatever pendejo turned on the furnace. They just watch the lights shift behind the door. It's too strange to comprehend. They can't process it.

The flames are flickering green.

The flourescents above them burn out, and it's just them, in the four dancing beams. The sounds from inside the furnace are warping. Bits of green are coming out and crawling along the dor.

Not flames. Dragonflies.

A sound rises in the furnace, while the two men just stand there, paralyzed. It doesn't sound like scraping metal. It sounds like a human, screaming, in agony. The sound's unmistakable. Anyone who's ever heard it is shaken to the core. The sound rises in pitch and volume, until—

The door starts rattling.

Something's trying to get out.

That shocks Cameron and Luis out of their stupor. Their shoes scrabble on the floor.

"Go! Go!" Luis is screaming at the younger man.

Like either of them need to be reminded.

They slam the door to the basement closed, imagining they can still hear the screaming through the floors. A few guests straggling in the lobby turn to gawk. Cameron keeps his back to the door, panting; he catches his breath and tells Luis,

"We've—…we've gotta call someone."

Luis can only nod.


End file.
